Becoming One

HOUSTON — The first Pastoral Provision parish in the U.S. is coming into the Ordinariate.

Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church and its school, the Atonement Academy, have been transferred to the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, effective March 21. At the direction of the Holy See, all parishes of the Pastoral Provision are to be incorporated into the Ordinariate: a special diocese for Roman Catholics who were nurtured in the Anglican tradition or whose faith has been renewed by the liturgy and evangelizing mission of the Ordinariate.

Founded in 1983 in San Antonio, Our Lady of the Atonement was a parish of a “Pastoral Provision” established by Pope John Paul II to allow for former Anglicans to form Catholic parishes within existing U.S. dioceses. With the establishment of the North American Ordinariate in 2012 and the ordination of its first bishop in 2016, the Holy See now expects all Pastoral Provision parishes in the U.S. to be integrated into the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.

The Ordinariate expresses its deepest gratitude to the Archdiocese of San Antonio for welcoming and caring for Our Lady of the Atonement since its inception, and for the Archdiocese’s ongoing commitment to the Church’s care for the unity of Christians. Through continued collaboration in the coming months, the Archdiocese and the Ordinariate will remain dedicated to supporting the natural evolution of this Pastoral Provision parish into the Ordinariate.

Our Lady of the Atonement and its school join more than 40 Ordinariate parishes and parochial communities in North America. Ordinariate parishes celebrate Mass according to a special form of the Roman Rite, using Vatican-approved texts which for centuries nourished the faith in Anglican contexts and prompted members’ desire to join the Catholic Church.

In 2009, the apostolic constitution,
Anglicanorum coetibus, authorized the creation of global “Ordinariates”: a type of diocese which could receive groups of former Anglicans directly into the Catholic Church. (There are three Ordinariates in the world: Our Lady of Walsingham in the United Kingdom; the Chair of Saint Peter in the United States and Canada; and Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Australia.)

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is a diocese for Roman Catholics who were nurtured in the Anglican tradition or whose faith has been renewed by the Ordinariate’s liturgy and evangelizing mission. Based in Houston, Texas, the Ordinariate has 41 Roman Catholic parishes and parochial communities across the United States and Canada and is served by more than 70 ordained Roman Catholic priests and deacons.